For those of you who’ve never heard Jeff Beck’s classic song “Going Down,” you-tube it. I guarantee, momentarily at least, the sun will shine in your back door. Initially the “bass” player for the Jimmy Page led Yardbirds, Beck’s inimitable guitar work soon became readily recognizable over the air waves. It always amazes me how many different sounds various guitar players coax out of their instruments. “Going down,” actually escaped from the cobwebs when the Hawks plunged in the standings during the 9 game losing streak. After a false summit, that had many gleefully hopping back on the band wagon, we once again appear to be heading in the wrong direction. Read more »

The lone addition Stan Bowman and the Blackhawks made before Monday’s 2pm central trade deadline was mobile defenseman Johnny Oduya.

Oduya, 30, comes to the Hawks from the Winnipeg Jets at the price of a 2nd and 3rd round draft choice in the 2013 NHL Draft. He is an unrestricted free agent this summer.

The six-foot 190 pound Stockholm native was playing third pair minutes in Winnipeg averaging 19 minutes per game. In 63 games played, Oduya had 2 goals, 11 assists and was a minus-9.

Oduya’s biggest asset is his skating. His addition and impact on the Blackhawks will be strikingly similar to how Chris Campoli fit in after he was acquired at last season’s trade deadline. Campoli’s addition was regarded as underwhelming at the time, but he did skate some big minutes for the Hawks. Read more »

The Chicago Blackhawks finished their California weekend road swing in Anaheim versus the Ducks Sunday evening. The night earlier saw Los Angeles King, Dustin Brown bury three goals and a helper, as the Hawks were shutout 4-0. The Ducks are looking to make a strong run to fight for a tight Western Conference playoff spot. Hawk’s Captain Jonathan Toews remained in Chicago for this trip and missed his 3rd consecutive game with an upper body injury. Niklas Hjalmarsson was also held back. With two leaders off the ice, the road team needed to fight hard to beat a talented Ducks squad.

Ray Emery got the coach Q nod for the start with Jonas Hiller getting his 21st straight start for the Ducks. Marcus Kruger played on the top line with Patrick Kane and Patrick Sharp. Brendan Morrison centered Marian Hossa and Viktor Stalberg. Dave Bolland was with Andrew Brunette and Bryan Bickell. Finally, Jamal Mayers had Michael Frolik and Jimmy Hayes on either side. Read more »

The Blackhawks were shellacked by the reinvigorated Los Angeles Kings, but it had little to do with the newly-acquired sniper Jeff Carter. Instead, it was the more recent subject of trade rumors surrounding the Kings, Dustin Brown, who scored a natural hat trick in the game’s first 25 minutes that proved to be an insurmountable lead for the home team.

While the Blackhawks had nary a shot to show for their first power play opportunity of the game, the Kings were able to capitalize on their first man advantage after John Scott got his elbow up finishing a check. Jarrett Stoll gained the offensive zone and dropped the puck to Dustin Brown along the sideboards. Stoll kept skating and drew Dylan Olsen out of position, giving Brown enough room to skate inside the dot and wrist the game’s first goal over Corey Crawford’s shoulder at 10:48. Read more »

Carter Hutton said he and his agent were not contacted by the Blackhawks about signing an NHL contract until this past Wednesday.

“I didn’t expect it,” Hutton admitted after picking up his IceHogs leading 11th victory in a 3-2 win at Allstate Arena in Rosemont on Friday night. “It happened the day before I got put on waivers.”

Hutton had to be placed on waivers on Thursday for the purpose of signing him to the NHL contract. Per guidelines in the NHL collective bargaining agreement, Hutton first had to be offered to the 29 other NHL teams before he could officially become a Blackhawk. The contract itself was done and official on Thursday morning.

“It kind of was quick,” Hutton said of the negotiation. “There wasn’t too much to talk about. It was kind of a done deal right away.”

As covered on Friday, Hutton was on a one-year standard AHL deal with Rockford and has been with the team ever since being recalled from Toledo on December 3rd to replace an injured Alexander Salak. Hutton performed so well in Salak’s absence that he became the clear number one during that time and when Salak returned Alec Richards was sent to Toledo of the ECHL.

On Friday, the Blackhawks officially signed Rockford IceHogs goaltender Carter Hutton to a one-year, two-way contract. The deal is for the remainder of this season. Hutton was immediately then reassigned to the IceHogs by the Blackhawks.

With the IceHogs, Hutton has a record of 10-8-0-2 and owns a 2.93 goals against average and .902 save percentage. His 21 starts and 10 wins lead the IceHogs. With the exception of one period of relief of Alec Richards during a late October call up while Alexander Salak was away tending to the birth of his first child, all of Hutton’s numbers have been accumulated since his recall on December 3rd.

In 9 starts in the month of January, Hutton went 7-1-0-1 posting a 1.86 GAA and .934 save percentage.

Hutton signed a one-year AHL contract with the IceHogs on August 1st.

Unlike the situation last season with Garnet Exelby, who had signed a professional try-out contract with Rockford, Read more »

The Chicago Blackhawks saw their four-game winning streak come to an end Thursday night in the United Center. Forty minutes of defensive dominance gave way to an opportunistic Dallas Stars club that outworked the Blackhawks in the final ten minutes and stunned the home team by a score of 3-1.

Rookie goalie Richard Bachman got the start for the Stars and proved to be the difference, keeping his team in the contest with 26 saves and allowing Dallas to snatch two points from the Blackhawks.

Neither team generated a lot of scoring chances in the opening period. The ‘Hawks continued to play well in their own zone, but only outshot the Stars 6-5. Read more »

318 players submitted answers to the annual questionnaire, written by the staff of Hockey Night in Canada and the National Hockey League Player’s Association.

Joel Quenneville, who some Blackhawks fans were screaming to have fired as little as eight days ago, saw his league-wide player approval rating in the “Coach players would most like to play for” category increase from 6 percent in the 2010-11 player poll to 11% this season. Quenneville placed second to Pittsburgh’s Dan Bylsma, who again received 21% of votes cast in the category.

In last year’s poll, 11% of players indicated the Chicago Blackhawks as the team they would most-like to play for, putting the Blackhawks in a tie for second with the Vancouver Canucks. This time around the Blackhawks received the most votes supplanting the Detroit Red Wings who topped the category a year ago. 14% of players responding indicated the Blackhawks were the team they’d most-like to play on. Detroit slid into second-place with a slight drop at 13% of the votes. Boston came in 3rd taking 11% of the votes, also the biggest one-year jump of any NHL team. Read more »

The Chicago Blackhawks managed to keep their win streak alive against the rival Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday night at the United Center, despite playing without captain Jonathan Toews. With Detroit entering play riding a six-game winning streak of their own, it was the home team that held onto a 2-1 lead to pick up their fourth consecutive win.

Corey Crawford started his fourth game in a row and allowed just one goal for the third straight game. He faced Jimmy Howard in net for the Wings, making his first start since missing time to a broken index finger. Both goalies loomed large in this one, but Crawford was able to spoil Howard’s comeback and earn his fourth win in as many starts.

Marcus Kruger put the Blackhawks down a man in just 34 seconds into the game with a tripping penalty in the offensive zone. Crawford was able to handle Detroit’s first few opportunities, including a shot from Jiri Hudler through traffic. Dave Bolland picked up the rebound but whiffed on the clear. The puck eventually found Valtteri Filppula at the right circle and he was able to wrist one past Crawford far side to put the Wings up 1-0 just 2:22 into the game. Read more »

When I was working as a foreman back in the 70’s a worker named Gus came up to me and said, “Rich, the Stones gone disco.” I had no idea what he was talking about and had him repeat what he was saying about three times. Finally I said “Gus, there is no way on God’s green earth the Stones would play a disco song. None, zippo.” Sure enough, a few days later the song “Miss You,” had flooded the air waves. Not exactly “Gimme Shelter, but actually the song was pretty catchy. It had a groove that had the potential to make a crackah think he could dance.

Out of all the genre’s of music that have emerged over the decades, Disco had to be my least favorite. It was a time of leisure suits, chest hair, ostentatious medallions, big hair, The Bee Gee’s and John Travolta. I recall talking about disco one day with my boss who would spin records on the side. This guy would scour garage sales for old Jazz albums and I really respected his musical taste. When I began mocking the Village People, in particular the song YMCA, he said something that I’ll never forget. Read more »